"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what picture it was that made me a trespasser," he said, with a suddenly reckless air. "Come, child, and you shall see. Perhaps it was the discovery that the dead was come alive that sent off two decent fellows to find a Spanish galleon without me. There are better things than gold. Aye, faith, the gold on a woman's head, the light in her eye, ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... said in reply to the Judge's outpourings, "you're right. There ain't a chance for them, not an eternal chance. You can't expect it, and it ain't all their fault either. Where are they to get their decent men from, unless some of you fellows go over? Here you are without a liar or a fool among you—not a durned one—made a clean sweep of all the intellect and honesty and incorruptible worth in the country and hold on to it too, and then let out on these ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... into her lap; then she smoothed the bills neatly one upon another, and built little pyramids of the dimes and quarters. Fifteen dollars! It must be five years now that she had been saving that money, and she did so need a new dress! She needed it to be—why—even decent!—looking sourly at the frayed ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... through the basest and most criminal of motives, were habitual accepters of persons; they annointed themselves with the last essence extracted from their flocks, and there was in them nothing of holy, of pure, of wise, or even of decent. ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... Boswell and Johnson stayed, and, as Boswell writes, "had a comfortable supper and got into high spirits," when Johnson "expatiated in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were the most sober, decent people in England, were the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest English." David Garrick went to school to Dr. Johnson in the suburbs of Lichfield, at Edial; Addison lived once at Lichfield; and Selwyn was its bishop a ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... to be seen in that sad meeting of working-women! There was the dull eye, the pinched-up face, which betokened absolute deprivation of necessary food,—yet withal, the careful adjustment of a faded shawl or dress, the honest pride, even in the depth of misery, to be at least decent, after the effort to preserve the old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet and a black embroidered waistcoat. He wore a ruff-band, a pair of black cut taffetas breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings, thus combining his taste for magnificence with a decent regard for the occasion. The multitude so pressed upon him, and he had walked with such an animated step, that when he ascended the scaffold, erect and smiling, he was observed to be ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... oil-lamps standing at long intervals apart are lighted, but when it is even moderately starlight these aids to finding one's way about are prudently dispensed with. There is not a single handsome and hardly a decent building in the whole place. The streets, as I saw them after rain, are veritable sloughs of despond, but they are capable of being changed by dry weather into deserts of dust. It is true, I have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... among the berried holly-boughs, and reflected in the old-fashioned oval mirrors fastened in the panels of the white wainscot. A quaint procession! Old Solomon, in his seedy clothes and long white locks, seemed to be luring that decent company by the magic scream of his fiddle—luring discreet matrons in turban-shaped caps, nay, Mrs. Crackenthorp herself, the summit of whose perpendicular feather was on a level with the Squire's shoulder—luring fair lasses complacently conscious of very short waists and ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... any cringing servility, but with an open, decent freedom in his manner, which expressed that he had been obliged, but that he knew his young benefactor was not thinking of the obligation. He made as little distinction as possible between his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... which Presley was led by the address in his memorandum book was a cheap but fairly decent hotel near the power house of the Castro Street cable. He inquired ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Next Saturday night say to yourself: 'Another pint, and I keep the Battalion back!' If you do that, you'll come back to barracks sober, like a decent chap. That'll do. Don't salute with your cap off. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... The writings themselves were only to be seen in bookshops of evil reputation, and, when hastily turned over with furtive glances, proved to be printed in small type and on villainous paper. For a boy to have bought them and taken them inside a decent home would have been to run the risk of fierce wrath in this life and the threat of it in the next. If ever there was a hung dog, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... his deliverance. The name of Belisarius can never die but instead of the funeral, the monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I only read, that his treasures, the spoil of the Goths and Vandals, were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as Antonina had much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and genuine narrative ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to that," he whispered back; "there's a crack like this with a movable batten over on the other side. You can stand on the platform, pull down the strip of wood, and get in quite a decent light from the other cell. It is a light cell like mine; and right above it you'll find the board that is loose in the ceiling; you can pull it down and slip your book into the space and then ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... of Character, and of sufficient property to Clothe themselves completely, find their own arms, and accoutrements, that is, an approved Rifle, handsome shot pouch, and powder horn, blanket, knapsack, with such decent clothing as should be prescribed, but which was at first ordered to be only a Hunting shirt and pantaloons, fringed on every edge and ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... no harm in the boy, though, it was all teasing. But it just weren't decent, somehow. So I tuk him out behind the woodshed and give his britches a good dusting just to remind him that that kind of thing weren't polite nohow. And Rev'rend Doane, he ain't never ...
— Year of the Big Thaw • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... We obtained tolerably decent lodgings at our inn, though the profoundest patriot America possesses, if he know anything of other countries, or of the best materials of his own, cannot say much in favour of the sleeping arrangements ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... be to remain here. You know we have been uneasy ever since her husband died. Herbert's infatuation concerning her has been pitiable, and we have always believed it has been that alone which has caused him to refuse so obstinately to enter into our plans, or to pay even decent courtesy to the various excellent young women we have from time to time asked down here, and who were in every way suitable for the position of mistress of this house—women full of sense, and who, with right guidance, would have made him perfectly happy. And now he ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... and unsystematic. He could not make the Duke of Richmond put off a large party at Goodwood for the sake of an important division in the House of Lords; and he did not always agree with Lord John Cavendish as to what constitutes a decent and reasonable quantity of fox-hunting for a political leader in a crisis. But it was part of the steadfastness of his whole life to do his best with such materials as he could find. He did not lose ...
— Burke • John Morley
... you," said Hartley, "what pleasure you felt in staying there?—I tell you, Dick, it is a shabby low place this Middlemas of ours. In the smallest burgh in England, every decent freeholder would have been asked if the ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... decent, keep from drinking, and don't get me into trouble at the school, you may stay and take what I ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... admiration or astonishment of all the bystanders, of which there were as many as would man a king's cutter. I kept under moderate sail until I reached Middle Deal, when my companion brought up all standing at the door of a decent-looking house, nor could I make him again break ground until a maidservant opened the door. "Lord," said she, "I thought it was the baker, sir, for you are on his horse." "That accounts," I said, "for his halting at your door. I wish, Betty, you would get him once more into plain sailing." ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... which she had gained over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by and by, if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga—perhaps too much dice, you know—coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even, to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... nation is generally judged over here by flashy pictures of the fast section of Paris society, drawn, very often, if not always, from the outside, by clever people too indolent to know that the psychology of decent people is quite as interesting and dramatic as that of the gutter-creatures of mere passion who dignify their cynical desires with noble names, and, so far as the latest school is concerned, fail even to reach the humblest ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Chamber outnumber the Catholics is in no respect due to religious intolerance, which in this body is totally unknown. Anybody who pays a guinea a year may be elected a member, whatever his religion, whatever his circumstances, providing he is a decent member of society, which is the only qualification required. Members are certainly elected by ballot, but during the many years I have belonged to the Chamber not a single person has been black-balled. If the Protestants are ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... problems of social pathology arise from the fact that the conditions of modern industry have brought people together who have few interests in common, and who were compelled to arrange themselves in some kind of decent order within a limited area, without sufficient time being given to evolve a suitable environment, or to prepare themselves for the environment which they actually found on every side of them. London in the past, therefore, cannot help us so very much to solve the riddles of London in the present, ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... I choose you, not because you are the best man—for there are two opinions about that—but because I am given to understand that you are a decent man whom I can trust. The terms of this match are ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which was to make this frightful catastrophe impossible. In the early part of the present century, these laws were re-enacted and revised by the City of Frankfort. The Deadhouse was attached to the cemetery, with a double purpose. First, to afford a decent resting-place for the corpse, when death occurred among the crowded residences of the poorer class of the population. Secondly, to provide as perfect a safeguard as possible against the chances of premature burial. The use of the Deadhouse (strictly confined to the Christian portion ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... song," he declared. "Then me for Lagonda's whirlpool. I'm not fit to live in a decent community, a blithering idiot and rascally villain, who lies in wait to hear and see like a fool. I thought Dennie knew I was there and would be in to dust me out in a minute. And when it was too late I turned to a pillar of salt and waited. ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the need of intelligent and decent church services in the South, I record the following facts, which were related to me by those who knew of them personally. A colored preacher of the "old-time" sort preached on the Judgment Day. He held the meeting from evening ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 2, February 1888 • Various
... poor women have but a single garment to cover their bodies with. This consists of a hood-like covering for the head, and a loose flowing robe, all in one piece; having neither shoes nor the other garments to make themselves presentable in any decent or refined society. Many present pictures of indescribable wretchedness. I saw a woman nurse her child in the cars, who, when presented with an apple for her babe, returned her thanks without a smile, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... give decent burial to your friend. And now he has been carried off—out into space—and you can help him. If you've a spark of decency in you, you will hear what ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... appointment, I assure you. You see, I have so much to do that I really must have help. I had a girl for three or four months. I gave her twenty-five pounds a year, and thought she would be a great comfort, but she made a mess of my room and my papers, and could not write a decent letter; besides, she was discontented, so she left me, and I have been in a horrid muddle for the last fortnight. Now if you like to come to me, while you are looking out for something better, I am sure I shall be charmed, and will do all I can to push you. It's a miserable ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... market; sewed, spun, and knit for a livelihood till her fingers' ends were sore: and when she could not get bread for her family, she was forced to hire them out at journey-work to her neighbors. Yet in these, her poor circumstances, she still preserved the air and mien of a gentlewoman—a certain decent pride that extorted respect from the haughtiest of her neighbors. When she came in to any full assembly, she would not yield the pas to the best of them. If one asked her, "Are you not related to John Bull?" "Yes," says she, "he has the honor to be my brother." So Peg's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "I wish you'd be decent to Brent. He's a pretty good fellow, and he's in with James Wing and that crowd of big financiers, and he seems to have taken a shine to me probably because he's heard of that copper deal ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... What may afford more of a parallel to the prospective German tutelage of the nations is the procedure of the Japanese establishment in Korea, Manchuria, or China; which is also duly covered with an ostensibly decent screen of diplomatic parables, but the nature and purpose of which is overt enough in all respects but the nomenclature. It is not unlikely that even this Japanese usufruct and tutelage runs on somewhat less humane and complaisant lines than a well-advised ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... kind of false modesty, most young men are apt to consider familiarity as unbecoming. Forwardness I allow is so; but there is a decent familiarity that is necessary in the course of life. Mere formal visits, upon formal invitations, are not the thing; they create no connection, nor will they prove of service to you; it is the careless and easy ingress and egress, at all ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... really imagine, brother, that the house of a woman of figure is to be attacked by warrants and brutal justices of the peace? I will inform you how to proceed. As soon as you arrive in town, and have got yourself into a decent dress (for indeed, brother, you have none at present fit to appear in), you must send your compliments to Lady Bellaston, and desire leave to wait on her. When you are admitted to her presence, as you certainly will be, and have told ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... made, the names of the most deserving applicants are to numbers of people perfectly well known. The members have now got before them a plain statement of fact as to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg most earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong to this institution, that must now decide, and cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not for. The question raised by ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... or they were built for tradesmen who have long since departed. These buildings are divided into two, three, or more habitations, each with its family; and many makeshifts have to be resorted to to render them decent and comfortable. This class of cottage is to be avoided if possible, because the close and forced intercourse which must take place between the families generally leads to quarrels. Perhaps there is one pump for the entire building, and one wants to use it just at the moment that another ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... of rowdies might surely be suppressed by the police. A system of "local option" might be introduced. In all decent quarters householders would vote against the licensed bellowings of cads and costermongers. In districts which think a noise pleasant and lively the voting would go the other way. People would know where they could be quiet, and where noise ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... in order to warn any that may be in the same way to change their course. Twenty years ago I was a hard-workin' man in this State. I got along fairly, an' had enough to live on an' keep my wife an' baby decent. Of course I took my dram like the other workmen, an' it never hurt me. But some men can't stand what others kin, an' the habit commenced to grow on me. I took a spree, now an' then, an' then went back to work, fur I was a good hand, an' could ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... hope you won't use your legal right and force a wife on me. I have no desire to tie myself up to a decent married life." ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... but," said Brace merrily. "It would have been quite a decent character if it had not been ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent since the days of Lady Bellaston, but the costume of the actors has changed more than their nature. Rawdon Crawley would not have been surprised to meet Captain Booth in a spunging-house; Shandon and his friends preserved the old ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... at anything like the mention of an honest and proper economy. Thousands of young girls are said to starve, or worse, yearly in London; and at the same time thousands of mistresses of households are ready to pay high wages for a decent housemaid, or cook, or a fair workwoman; and can by no means ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... familiar things—the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a Government clerk; he regretted all the gossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government offices. "If I had had a decent brother-in-law," Carlier would remark, "a fellow with a heart, I would not be here." He had left the army and had made himself so obnoxious to his family by his laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brother-in-law had made superhuman efforts to procure him ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... very simple errand; and though I was well enough inclined to be neighbourly to Mr. Gilverthwaite, it was certainly his money that was my chief inducement in going on his business at a time when all decent folk should be in their beds. And for this first part of my journey my thoughts ran on that money, and on what Maisie and I would do with it when it was safely in my pocket. We had already bought ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... contrary, Pope Innocent I says (Ep. ad Decent.): "Priests, when baptizing, may anoint the baptized with chrism, previously consecrated by a bishop: but they must not sign the brow with the same oil; this belongs to the bishop alone, when he gives the Paraclete." Now this is done ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... Thrush had quite a decent voice, I hear, Some years ago (A score or so), But now her voice ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... sixes, by the Lord!—two of 'em, three, four. Now Frank is my shipmate, and, in the main, a tolerable decent fellow; but he isn't worth ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... is no feud, and it doesn't seem so romantic when you're in it. The man my sister married I thought was frightfully boring except for his family place, and being in the army, which is rather decent. He talks," she smiled, "like a phonograph with only ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... one faith! If the act was not sublime in itself, it was the beginning of a sublime history, and the English Church thereupon awoke to a sense of her duty to the child she had long nursed in the colonies and now left friendless and forlorn, as well as to a more decent recognition of the poor, down-trodden Scottish communion. The offensive laws which had been for some time comparatively inoperative were soon repealed or modified by act of Parliament; and the laity, more than the clergy, felt the advantage ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... butter. When so little is actually required, it does not seem of very serious importance whether the adulterant or preservative be flour, chalk, or water, but it is exasperating in a very high degree to have such compounds as Nos. 3 and 6 palmed off as decent things when even Nos. 1, 2, and 5 have been rejected by dairymen as useless for the purpose. In conclusion, I may be permitted to express the hope that others may be induced to examine the annatto taken into stock more closely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... then laughed as he glanced at his own person and then back at Henri. "Well, a fellow has to admit that there's not one of us fit to enter decent society; but it ain't our fault, is it? Not exactly. Only, as Henri says, it would give us away badly if we went down to the farm and demanded victuals. Still, the fact remains that a chap can't help feeling hungry, particularly when ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... in the dew did go, And prettily bedabbled so, Her clothes held up, she showed withal Her decent legs, clean, long, and small. I follow'd after to descry Part of the nak'd sincerity; But still the envious scene between Denied the mask I ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... to ask for an increase, but he would not. Seven shillings a week he had always had; and that small sum, with something his wife earned by making highly finished smock-frocks, had been sufficient to keep them all in a decent way; and his sons were now all earning their own living. But Caleb got married, and resolved to leave the old farm at Bishop to take a better place at a distance from home, at Warminster, which had been offered him. He would ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... to shoulder with the impudentest men in his Majesty's kingdom; the men who gave their mornings to writing comedies coarser than Dryden or Etherege, and their nights to cards, dice, and strong drink; roving the streets half clad, dishevelled, wanton; beating the watch, and insulting decent pedestrians; with occasional vicious outbreaks which would have been revolting in a company of inebriated coal-heavers, and which brought these fine gentlemen before a too lenient magistrate. But were not these the manners of which St. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... moist and full of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn. It was a great little place, comfortable, airy, and cheerful. What could be more invigorating than that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, when you came to ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... never knew anything of the kind," said Linda bluntly, "because I have not the slightest ambition to enter society either now or then. All I am asking is to enter the high school in a commonly decent, suitable dress; to enter our dining room as a daughter; to enter a workroom decently equipped for my convenience. You needn't be surprised if you hear some changes going on in the billiard room and see some changes going ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... peasant girl. She was dressed in the common style, of course, but she was dressed neatly and prettily. My lord took a fancy to her. He said, 'Now there's a lass who knows how to wear clothes. Put her in decent apparel, and she'd pass for a princess.' But a girl, who had a pretty face and a fine figure, made no impression on him unless she wore her clothing well, if you see what I mean, ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... purpose. All the children in Washington and Georgetown are invited to attend; all have an equal right to go, ignorant and educated, poor and rich; no matter how poor, if the girls can get a neat white frock, and the boys a decent dress, they are all admitted; every one wears a wreath of flowers, or has a bouquet in his hand or bosom. The children assemble very early, and dance as much as they please, to the music of a fine band, and all partake of some simple refreshment, ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... face of a Roman mother, tight-lipped, brown-eyed, and fierce. You may understand the kind of woman she was from the hands she employed on the farm. They were smugglers and night-malefactors to a man—and she liked that. The decent, slow-witted, gently devious type of rustic could not live under her. The neighbours round declared that the Lady Mary Kemp's farm was a hotbed of disorder. I expect it was, too; three of our men were hung up at Canterbury on ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... were so intense and the expression of political animosities were more bitter than they were a century ago between the disciples of Jefferson and Hamilton. Epithets in popular discourse were openly hurled at political antagonists that decent men would not tolerate to-day, and the public press gave expression to charges and insinuations against honorable partisans such as none but the very yellowest and most debauched journals would now deem it expedient to print. As a single illustration, I have in my possession what is called "An ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... found to be as quiet and decent a house as any in the row, and having inspected it from a little distance he walked up briskly to the door, and rang the bell. He walked up briskly in order that his advance might not be seen; unless, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... leaning back against his pillows. "Isn't it possible for a decent man to kill another man and not be called a liar when he tells about it? Why do so ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... the rite begun with care: All requisites and means were there: And glorious Visvamitra lent His willing aid as president. And all the sacred rites were done By rule and use, omitting none. By chaplain-priest, the hymns who knew, In decent form and order due. Some time in sacrifice had past, And Visvamitra made, at last, The solemn offering with the prayer That all the Gods might come and share. But the Immortals, one and all, Refused ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... odd fragment of our motley population. It is for the sake of their children, who ought to be, at least equally with those of the English labouring classes, since they cannot get it from their parents, provided with means of decent Christian education, that Mr. George Smith has brought this subject under public notice. The Gipsies, so long as they refrain from picking and stealing, and do not obstruct the highways, should not ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... here—what am I saying?—I mean my Lord Marquis de Valentin—is in the possession of a secret for obtaining wealth. His wishes are fulfilled as soon as he knows them. He will make us all rich together, or he is a flunkey, and devoid of all decent feeling." ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... a landowner here, and your neighbour, Radilov; perhaps you have heard of me?' continued my new acquaintance; 'to-day is Sunday, and we shall be sure to have a decent dinner, otherwise I would not have ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... "But a very decent, civil-spoke, quiet young chap 'e were!" continued the Ancient, "only for 'is imagination; Lord! 'e were that full o' imagination 'e couldn't drink 'is ale like an ordinary chap—sip, 'e'd go, an' sip, sip, till 'twere all gone, an' then 'e'd forget ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... do with such a fool as you?" cried M. Lecoq angrily. "I begin to think you are a rascal too. A decent fellow would see that we wanted to get him out of a scrape, and he'd tell us the truth. You are prolonging your imprisonment by your own will. You'd better learn that the greatest shrewdness consists in telling the truth. A last time, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... and distributed his adjectives aright for the year 1856? Since then, however, many alarming heresies have taken root in our land, and some are heard to declare that both these sets of adjectives apply to men and women alike, and are, in fact, necessities of any decent human outfit. Otherwise the conclusion is obvious, that no one desirous of the adjective 'manly' must ever be—soft, mild, pitiful and flexible, kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender, timorous, or modest; and no one desirous of the adjective 'womanly' be—firm, brave, ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... several other stanzas. And about then Miss Cross dumped a bundle of damp clothes into Irma's box and said, "Iron these next and do them decent!" I peered suspiciously into the box. It was my own ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... produced none of those dreadful effects which were the consequences of drinking geneva; and since the prohibition of the distilling of malt-spirits had taken place, the common people were become apparently more sober, decent, healthy, and industrious: a circumstance sufficient to induce the legislature not only to intermit, but even totally to abolish the practice of distillation, which has ever been productive of such intoxication, riot, disorder, and distemper, among ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... sight. I had not much misgiving as to the ultimate result of the fight; but I believed that the brigantine at least would not get off without a rather severe mauling, in which case the schooner would naturally stand by her until she could be again put into decent ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... lifetime, to be sure, the wages of one woman in industry are greater than the earnings in the short life of one prostitute; but from the viewpoint of the man who pockets most of the earnings, it is more profitable to kill off a dozen women than to keep one at decent work through an average lifetime. This economic condition is revealed to the cast-out woman after a few years, on the brink of the grave; but at the outset of her brief career, she sees the immediate gain, not ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... was out—out with the bag, as young Pedgift called it. They tell me he's a decent elderly man. A little broken by his troubles, and a little apt to be nervous and confused in his manner with strangers; but thoroughly competent and thoroughly to be depended on—those are Pedgift's ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... painful one, for boots and clothes had well nigh given out, and it was with blistered feet that the bishop tramped along the sandy coast to Hamlin's cottage on the Manukau, whence a sail across the harbour brought him to Onehunga, with just one suit sufficiently decent to enable him to enter Auckland by daylight, though his broken boots compelled him to avoid its ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... mine to do if I was in Tom's place. So out I goes, with my Cap'n yellin' at me to stop, an' I got to Tom an' give him a good, honest swig. The bullets pinged around us, although I saw a German officer—a decent young fellow—try to keep his men from shootin'. But he couldn't hold 'em in, so I hoisted Tom on my back an' started for our trenches. Got there, too, you know, jest as a machine-gun over to the right started spoutin'. It didn't matter my droppin' Tom in the trench an' tumblin' after him. ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... glittering eyes, laid his hand on his handsome fair beard, a familiar gesture with him, and drew his fingers down it to the tip of the last hairs, as if to pull it longer and thinner. Twice his lips parted to utter some decent remark, but after long meditation he could only ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... I may only have a walking funeral, and never be buried decent with a mourning-coach and feathers, if the boy hasn't been and made a key for his own self!' cried Miggs. 'Oh the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... of the popular novels which preceded "Evelina" were such as no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held in horror among religious people. In decent families, which did not profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all such works. Sir ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Yorkshire, on which the country hand-loom weavers eke out a miserable livelihood by cultivating patches of grass land, there is distress more acute than ever was known in a Dorset village. But in Northumberland, by exception, there is a decent country life. 'What I saw of the northern peasantry impressed me very strongly in their favour; they are very intelligent, sober, and courteous in their manners.... The education in Northumberland is very good; the people are intelligent and cute, alive to the advantages of knowledge, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... in Craven—a confidence quite independent of his liking, or not liking her—marked for her the fact that she had no confidence in Arabian. Craven was just an English gentleman. He might have done all sorts of things, but he was obviously a thoroughly straight and decent fellow. A woman had only to glance at him to know the things he could never do. But when she looked at Arabian—well, then, the feeling was rather that Arabian might do anything. Craven belonged obviously to a class, although he ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... the same in the world. As we are obliged all the year to be decent, orderly, and reasonable, we make up for such a long restraint during the Carnival. It is a door opened to the incongruous fancies and wishes that have hitherto been crowded back into a corner of our brain. For a ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... her, and that she should put up at the Hotel Santa Catalina, Las Palmas. Letters from Government officials were sent to smooth the way there for her. Miss Young and others prepared her outfit, and made her, as she said, "wise-like and decent,"—she, the while, holding daily receptions, for she was now regarded as one of the West African sights, and every one came to call upon her. Mr. Wilkie managed the financial side, and gave the cash-box to the Captain. When she transhipped at Forcados. ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... period. From the age of twenty-five or thirty, however, to that of sixty or sixty-five, this equilibrium occurs. Repair then equals waste; reconstruction equals destruction. The female organization, like the male, is now developed: its tissues are consolidated; its functions are established. With decent care, it can perform an immense amount of physical and mental labor. It is now capable of its best work. But, in order to do its best, it must obey the law of periodicity; just as the male organization, to do its best, must obey the law ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no ONE by BIRTH could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve SOME decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... that I should look in at night, when—if he survived—he would be coming up for the fourth time; but I've never deserted a pal in distress, so I said good-bye to the little lunch I'd been planning at a rather decent tavern I'd discovered on Fifth Avenue, and trailed along. They were showing pictures when I reached my seat. It was one of those Western films, where the cowboy jumps on his horse and rides across country at a hundred and fifty miles an hour to escape the sheriff, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... not long since on the Dublin stage, a chorus of old women was introduced, who set up the Irish howl round the relics of a physician, who is supposed to have fallen under the wooden sword of Harlequin. After the old women have continued their Ullaloo for a decent time, with all the necessary accompaniments of wringing their hands, wiping or rubbing their eyes with the corners of their gowns or aprons, &c. one of the mourners suddenly suspends her lamentable cries, and, turning to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Cyd? Shut your mouth, and behave like a decent man," added Dan, rebuking the levity ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... could only get a decent dinner, a good roast and plain potato, I would like Paris much better," said an old Englishman to me ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... received strangers with a generosity free from ostentation. He went himself to meet the two travelers, whom he led into a commodious apartment, where he desired them to repose themselves a little. Soon after he came and invited them to a decent and well-ordered repast during which he spoke with great judgment of the last revolutions in Babylon. He seemed to be strongly attached to the queen, and wished that Zadig had appeared in the lists to dispute the crown. "But the people," added he, "do not deserve ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of the hand. The fellow traveller, albeit lavender-hued from an autumn east wind, was obediently observing the anaemic patches of oats and barley, pale and thin, like the hair of a starving baby, and the huge slants of brown heather and turf bog, and was interjecting "Just so!" at decent intervals. Now and then, as the two tall brown mares slackened for a bout of collar-work at a hill, or squeezed slowly past a cart stacked high with sods of turf, we, sitting in silence, Irish wolves in the clothing of English tourists, could hear across the intervening pile of ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... is a close red tunic, with long sleeves;[1] and over this a blue robe or mantle. In the early pictures, the colours are pale and delicate. Her head ought to be veiled. The fathers of the primeval Church, particularly Tertullian, attach great importance to the decent veil worn by Christian maidens; and in all the early pictures the Virgin is veiled. The enthroned Virgin, unveiled, with long tresses falling down on either side, was an innovation introduced about the end of the fifteenth century; commencing, I think, with the Milanese, and thence ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... right after dinner. Here's some sponge cake—but it ain't fit t' eat, hardly. I let Dell look in the oven, 'cause my han's was all over flour, an' she slammed the door an' it fell. But yuh can't expect one person t' know everything—an' too many han's can't make decent soup, as the sayin' is, an' it's the ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... that, it's health cranks and temperance cranks, and moral cranks, and socialist cranks, and every other kind of crank that believes in people being decent and living happy—health, quiet lives, instead of fighting and robbing and—boozing and abusing themselves and ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... interest), like most of the French satires of that period without date, entitled, L'apres dinee des Anglais, par un Francais prisonnier-de-guerre, which satirizes the after-dinner drinking propensities of the English of the period. The caricature, although neither flattering nor altogether decent, is probably not an exaggerated picture of English after-dinner conviviality while ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... {eyeball search}. 2. By extension, writing code which does something in an explicit or low-level way for which a presupplied library routine ought to have been available. "This cretinous B-tree library doesn't supply a decent iterator, so I'm having to ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... wife, was a fat, round, pursy dame, of some forty years' travel through this wilderness of sorrow, and a decent, honest, sober, and well-conditioned housewife she was; cleanly, thrifty, and had an excellent cheesepress, which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... back unmated, so far as she was concerned, into his native element. The contingency never entered into her calculations. She intended that the ship which had brought Ulysses to her island should take him off again after a decent interval of honeymoon; then she would confess all to Mrs. Bilkins, and be forgiven, and Mr. Bilkins would not cancel that clause supposed to exist in his will bequeathing two first-mortgage bonds of the Squedunk E. B. Co. to a certain faithful servant. In the mean while ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... dustpanful of chips into the fire. "It is good fun, certainly; but out here one has so much of it that sometimes it comes under the suspicion of being hard work. Now, when Jose has the kitchen windows washed it will all be pretty decent. We can't undertake much beyond making the first day or two more comfortable. Miss Young will prefer to make her own plans and arrangements; and I don't fancy she's the sort of girl who will enjoy being too ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... A poor but decent-looking man rose up. "I could bear," said he, "his cheating, or his defrauding me out of my right—I could bear that, although it's bad enough too; but when I think of the shame and disgrace his son brought upon my innocent girl, undher his father's roof, where she was at sarvice—may God ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... speak of beauty. I can't suffer any such profane turn in the conversation as to dispute the superiority of Irishwomen's lips, eyes, noses, and eyebrows, to anything under heaven. We'll not talk of gay fellows; egad, we needn't. I'll give you the garrison,—a decent present,—and I'll back the Irish bar for more genuine drollery, more wit, more epigram, more ready sparkling fun, than the whole rest of the empire—ay, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... that almost all our people have had a professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how much study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not more than this. Now most decent people hear one hundred lectures or sermons (discourses) on theology every year,—and this, twenty, thirty, fifty years together. They read a great many religious books besides. The clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except what they preach themselves. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... her friend, Mrs. Wallingford, that she agreed to give her a trial. Mrs. O'Flaherty seemed very thankful when she called, soon after, and Mrs. Leighton informed her that she had obtained a situation for her. Mrs. Leighton also furnished her with money sufficient to purchase some plain, but decent clothing, and a few days after she entered upon her duties in the dwelling of Mrs. Wallingford, who afterwards frequently remarked to Mrs. Leighton that she had much reason to thank her for providing her with the best ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... cried, "look me in the eye." And he fixed upon me a gaze full of impotent anger. "Now," I resumed, "I wish you and your family to understand that you've come to the end of your rope. You must become decent, law-abiding people, like the rest of us, or we shall put you where you can't harm us. I, for one, am going to give you a last chance. Your children were stealing my fruit last night, and acting shamefully afterward. You also trespassed, and you threatened these two boys; you are idle in ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... conclusion that woman's influence is as wholesome and as much needed in the government of the State as in the government of the family. We do not know of a respectable woman in the territory who objects to or neglects to use her political power, and we do not know of a decent man in the territory who wishes it abolished, or who is not even glad to have woman's ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... to me about taverns! There is just one genuine, clean, decent, palatable thing occasionally to be had in them,—namely, a boiled egg. The soups taste pretty good sometimes, but their sources are involved in a darker mystery than that of the Nile. Omelettes taste ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... divinam AEneida vates Lusit opus, simul & gracili modulatus avena, Fata decent majora tuos, Eveline, triumphos, AEternum renovatur honos, te nulla vetustas Obruet, atque tua servanda volumina cedro Durent, & meritam cingat tibi laurea frontem Qui vitam Silvis donasti & ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard—where the brick grave that held a father whom we know, was found with the stone laid prostrate upon it after the flood—had recovered all its grassy order and decent quiet. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass? If ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... world. You would not have been, save for the chiefs before you who ordered and regulated for your fathers. No seed of you will come after you, except that we order and regulate for you now. You must be peace-abiding, and decent, and blow your noses. You must be early to bed of nights, and up early in the morning to work if you would heave beds to sleep in and not roost in trees like the silly fowls. This is the season for the yam-planting and you must plant now. We say now, to-day, and not picnicking and hulaing ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Kilmackerlie. They were books o' divinity, to be sure, or so they ca'd them; but the serious were o' opinion there was little service for sae mony, when the hail o' God's Word would gang in the neuk of a plaid. Then he wad sit half the day and half the nicht forbye, which was scant decent—writin', nae less; and first, they were feared he wad read his sermons; and syne it proved he was writin' a book himsel', which was surely no fittin' for ane of his years ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it is not decent to exult unrestrainedly in melancholy events, lest the subjects should seem to be governed by tyranny, not by authority. It is better to imitate Cicero, who, when he had it in his power either to spare or to strike, preferred, as he tells us himself, to seek occasions for pardoning rather ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... countenance, is based wholly and exclusively on our Jewish question and its bloody excesses. Take away from Russia these excesses, leave, if you wish, the anti-Semitism, but in that externally decorous form in which it still exists in the backward portions of Europe,—and we shall become at once decent Europeans, and not Asiatics and barbarians, whose proper place is beyond the Ural. This is a fact the obviousness of which every new day of the present war makes more ...
— The Shield • Various
... connexion that thus operates is an association of ideas. How can it be, when, as frequently happens, you have not the smallest idea of what it is you are saying or playing? Have you not often, after reverently saying grace, like the decent paterfamilias you probably are, occasioned a giggle round the table by saying it again a minute or two afterwards, in utter unconsciousness that you had said it just before? Or, if I may so far flatter myself as to fancy my reader a fair ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... said Haynerd meekly. "I really am trying to be decent, you know. But when I think of Ames it's like a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... a half-decent outfit, either," complained Doc Tomlinson. "Hay wire ain't any good for croquet arches; and as for these here balls and mallets you bought sight-unseen by mail, they're a disgrace ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... brave time gadding with your fine friends and never thinking how you were leaving your old father to eat his dinner his lone. And who's this you have with you? What sort of behaviour is this, to be coming here bringing a stranger with you to a decent, quiet house, ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... escaped from the criminal's cage in the amphitheatre to which you were condemned (for the murder of your host?) Won't you hold your tongue, you nocturnal assassin, who, even when you swived it bravely, never entered the lists with a decent woman in your life? Was I not a 'brother' to you in the pleasure-garden, in the same sense as that in which this boy now is in this lodging-house?" "You sneaked away from the master's ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... sure," declared Franz. "No German would be so decent as to rescue five imprisoned Americans. He'd let us ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... ever, and that Peel's speeches indicate a bitterness undiminished, but this will not happen. It is clear that the general tone and temper of parties is softened, and though a great deal of management and discretion is necessary to accomplish anything like a decent compromise, the majority of both parties are earnestly desirous of bringing the business to an end by any means. What has already taken place between the Government and Wharncliffe and Harrowby has certainly smoothed the way, and removed much of that feeling ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... We owe your family a great debt. When young Denys LeFleur was shipped over here to New Orleans under false accusation of his enemies, the first Richard Ralestone became his patron. He helped the boy salvage something from the wreck of the LeFleur fortunes in France to start anew in a decent profession under tolerable surroundings, when others of his kind died miserably as beggars on the mud flats. Twice before have we been forced to be the bearers of ill news, but—" he shrugged, "that was in the past. This lies in ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... without some kind of religion. So Satan tries to tempt us to the Gerizim temple. Serve God by all means, he cries, but serve the world too. Go to church, say your prayers, have a fair polish of Sunday religion; it is decent, it is respectable, it is what is expected of you. But yet, at the very same time, serve the world, please yourself. Take part in any pleasure that attracts you, live as you please, enjoy yourself to the full. Let the lust of the flesh, the lust of ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... them, imagining it a right royal way of making money, and much better fun than ploughing, lugged out his leathern purse, and began by staking a modest florin on the rouge. In the course of about half an hour he had contrived to win a very decent sum, and was walking away in great glee, when a gendarme, who had been watching him all the while, quietly collared him and dragged him off to the Polizei, where, as we afterwards learned, he ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... saints! the very name it bears A kind of sacred origin declares; Ta'en, as I find by hunting records o'er, From one BOTOLFO, canonized of yore,[5] Whom bards have left nor epitaph nor verse on, Though in his day, sans doubt, a decent person: This town, in olden times of stake and flame, A famous nest of Puritans became; Sad, rigid souls, who hated as they ought The carnal arms wherewith the Devil fought; Dancing and dicing, music, and whate'er Spreads for humanity ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Let the clerk take care also that the smutty scullion reeking from his stewpots does not touch the lily leaves of books, all unwashed, but he who walketh without blemish shall minister to the precious volumes. And, again, the cleanliness of decent hands would be of great benefit to books as well as scholars, if it were not that the itch and pimples are characteristic ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... French traits that holds its own among them. Parties leave the city in carts and wagons by midnight, or earlier, and drive out as far as they can the remainder of the night, in order to pass the whole Sunday in the woods, despite the mosquitoes and black flies. Those we saw seemed a decent, harmless set, whose idea of a good time was to be in the open air, and as far ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... was a square wooden affair, long wanting paint, and trimmed with little scrollwork around the diminutive front porch. The color was indescribable, blending well into the surroundings either day or night. It had a cheerful, decent look, but very tiny. There was a small yard about it with a picket fence, and a leafless lilac bush. A cheerful barberry bush flanked the gate on either side. The front door was open into a tiny hall and beyond the light ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... carefully put on a decent black dress and set out for Unter den Linden to call on the minister's wife. She sent in her card with nothing on it but "Effi von Innstetten, nee von Briest." Everything else was left off, even "Baroness." When the man servant returned and said, "Her Excellency begs you to enter," Effi followed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... snow. . . . No, I shall never get anything done with him! We are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest, and then think about ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the year of our Lord 391, in a narrow street leading from the commercial harbor known as Kibotus, an old man was slinking along close to the houses. His clothes were plain but decent, and he walked with his head bent forward looking anxiously on all sides; when the patrol came by he shrank into the shadow; though he was no thief he had his reasons for keeping out of the way of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... root of the trouble, Jane. What chance had Pennyloaf of ever learning how to keep a decent home, and bring up her children properly? How was she brought up? The wonder is that there's so much downright good in her; I feel the same wonder about people every day. Suppose Pennyloaf behaved as badly as her mother does, who on earth would have the right ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... a decent place to make a camp," he remarked, "and then after we get the shelter started, and the cheery fire warming things up, two of us ought to wander off up the bank and see what's doing ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... wish I weren't. Not that it matters much, of course; but just now, when one has a chance to do something decent for one's Motherland and justify one's existence, it hits ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... he draws on his courage. The history of the two years that passed before he came to Mr. Sloane is really absolutely edifying. He rescued his sisters and nieces from the deep waters, placed them high and dry, established them somewhere in decent gentility—and then found at last that his strength had left him—had dropped dead like an over-ridden horse. In short, he had worked himself to the bone. It was now his sisters' turn. They nursed him with all the added tenderness of gratitude for the past ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... mighty hard to be always saying 'no'; and there ain't much to do in these places but to drink or to gamble. A man here ain't so much to be blamed as folks who live in comfortable houses, and have got wives and families and decent places of amusement, and books and all that sort of thing, if they take to drink or gambling. I have not any right to preach, for if I don't drink I do gamble; that is, I have done; though I swore off that when I got the letter telling me that your father had gone. Then I thought what a fool ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... The Tyranny of the Dark, that for two years (beginning when she was about seventeen) these powers of darkness made her life a hell. It won't do to be hasty in condemning the mediums wholesale. There are many decent people who are possessed by strange forces, but are shy of confessing their abnormalities. Ask your family physician. He will tell you that he always has at least one patient who is ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... would think that he had either lit it at one of these polluted fires or had held some converse with a woman during her retirement, which was esteemed a most disgraceful and wicked thing to do. Decent men would not approach within a certain distance of a woman at such times, and if they had to convey anything to her they would stand some forty or fifty paces off and throw it to her. Everything which was touched ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... the printed ticket from his hand and hid it in her bosom. "Now," said she, "you have but to bring me a decent suit ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... himself (bound up at the end of the Life) were truly composed and written by him. Being an enormous miscreant the phrenologists got hold of him, and made the notorious facts of his character into evidence of the truth of their system. He affected some decent poetry just before he was hanged, and therefore the Saints took up his memory and wrote monodies on him. His piety and the composition of the lies in this book broke out at ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... by the hollow cosmopolitan formulae which have an equally disastrous effect upon art and letters. The modern isms are so many acids which dissolve everything living and concrete. No one achieves a masterpiece, nor even a decent piece of work, by the help of realism, liberalism, or romanticism. Separatism has even less virtue than any of the other isms, for it is the abstraction of a negation, the shadow of a shadow. The various isms of the present are ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Tannenbaum and I went to India last year, and Persia and around. Real interesting. My, but they're dirty, those towns. We used to kick about Des Moines, now that they use so much soft coal, and all the manufacturing and all. But my land, it's paradise compared to those places. And the food! Only decent meals we had in Egypt was a place in Cairo called Pardee's, run by a woman whose husband's left her or died, or something. Real home-loving woman she was. Such cooking.... Why, that's so! Your name's Pardee, too, isn't it! Well, I always say to Mr. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... personal arbitrament;—his eye flashed fire, and he measured Edward as if to choose where he might best plant a mortal wound. But although we do not now quarrel according to the modes and figures of Caranza or Vincent Saviola, no one knew better than Fergus that there must be some decent pretext for a mortal duel. For instance, you may challenge a man for treading on your corn in a crowd, or for pushing you up to the wall, or for taking your seat in the theatre; but the modern code ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... of the Great One wuz onmarked by even a decent memorial, let alone the great one they ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... he said with a cajoling smile. "They're a pretty decent lot, really. Sagorski—the big chap with the fuzzy hair, he's not half bad when you know him; and Carty, the one with the cauliflower ear, his fight comes off inside of a week. We're helping him out, too, you see—good food, clean air—bully fellow—a little ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... crop of corn, both Indian and English, he had made that year. The children were to discharge all the debts of his estate, pay him fourteen pounds a year, and contribute equally, as much more as might be necessary for his comfortable maintenance, and also to his "decent burial." The labors of his life had closed. He had borne the heaviest burden that can be laid on the heart of a good man. He found rest, and sought solace and support, in the society and love of his children and their families, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... of all the fallen warriors were buried the next day, and decent burial was also given to Jumonville. But that of the Seigneur de Chatillard was still lying in state when Willet ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of a more careful toilette the poor man had gone back to the decent demeanour of happier days. He said nothing; was, indeed, in a state of black depression which he made no attempt to hide, but he outraged no longer the sensitive feelings of ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... native to a sense of the advantages of British goods. At present, I am quite content to do nothing particular—to ride and drive about, return calls, and so on—but I expect, before very long, I shall get restless, and want to be doing something. However, there is the Continent open to one, and decent hotels to stop at. No fevers ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... swiftness before the kurios. "Behold all that is left of the father of Jael, the fisherman who followed the call of the Gaulonite to liberty from oppression, nor was the head that once this covering clung to, allowed its right to rot in a decent tomb. What hast thou of help to offer the oppressed?" and with a sudden twist he wrapped the cloth about his outstretched hand and held ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... "Decent or not," said Captain Glenn, "a pirate's a pirate, and if we can manage to get out of his clutches it's up ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Fosdick made no objection. The boys succeeded in getting two decent trunks at three dollars apiece, and ordered them sent to their room in Mott Street. It must be remembered by my readers, who may regard the prices given as too low, that the events here recorded took place several years before the war, when ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the particulars of which were first disclosed to them in the February following, when Bonaparte had been absent from his army of England six weeks. The assumption of the Imperial dignity procured him another decent opportunity of offering his olive-branch to those who had caused his laurels to wither, and by whom, notwithstanding his abuse, calumnies, and menaces, he would have been more proud to be saluted Emperor than by all the nations upon ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... which, while the general effect remains vivid in one's mind, the salient points are so few that it is difficult to say much by way of description. The houses had once been occupied by people in better circumstances than its present inhabitants; and indeed they looked all decent enough until, turning two right angles, we came upon another sort. They were still as large, and had plenty of windows; but, in the light of a single lamp at the corner, they looked very dirty and wretched and dreary. A little shop, with dried herrings and bull's-eyes ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... any common inkstands, then, With all their miscellaneous stocks, To find a decent pen, Was like a dip into a lucky box: You drew—and got one very curly, And split like endive in some hurly-burly; The next unslit, and square at end, a spade, The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made; The fourth a broom; the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... were caused by men, by the interaction of human wills and desires, and by men, by the conscious and deliberate application of human intelligence, they could and must be solved. In spite of their belief in mysterious powers which control the destinies of men and nations, they did not think it decent to abandon public affairs to Providence; nor did they avert their gaze from them as too mundane for the squeamish intellectual to handle and turn them over to the tender mercies of the ignorant and less scrupulous ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... idea was overruled, partly in compliance with Lady Scatcherd's entreaties, and partly because it would have seemed as though they had both thought the presence of its owner had made the house an unfit habitation for decent people. The doctor therefore returned, leaving Mary there; and Lady Scatcherd busied herself ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... have atoned for his early irregularities by the practice of that austere piety which Jerome notices more than once as a characteristic of his old age.[177] The discipline was hard, and the life unlovely, but the home was at least decent and orderly, and no opportunities or provocations to loose manners or ill doing existed therein. In Cardan's own case it is to be feared that, after Lucia's death, the affairs of his household fell into dire confusion, in spite of the presence ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... as designing figureheads was only for those who had been to college, and who could read and write! So he worked away, day after day, and with the help of the goodwife's foresight and economy, managed to keep out of debt, pay his tithes at church and lead a decent life. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson |
